Policy
An unnamed FDA official also told reporters that it would be good for Moderna to “show some humility” and admit that it didn’t follow the regulator’s recommendations in testing its mRNA flu vaccine.
FEATURED STORIES
Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Merck are contributing drug ingredients as part of their deals with the White House but are keeping many of the terms of their agreements private.
Some 200 rare disease therapies are at risk of losing eligibility for a pediatric priority review voucher, a recent analysis by the Rare Disease Company Coalition shows. That could mean $4 billion in missed revenue for already cash-strapped biotechs.
The FDA’s rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program missed reauthorization at the last minute in 2024; advocates have been fighting to get it back ever since.
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In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will roll chronic disease programs into a new Administration for a Healthy America.
Paul Offit, longtime member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee and an outspoken critic of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was recently informed by the Department of Health and Human Services that his services are no longer required.
While trade groups hail the executive order as a national health security opportunity, analysts warn that production costs could go up in the near term.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—along with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and CBER Director Vinay Prasad—argued against vaccine mandates, partly because they limited medical choice. This week, the FDA under their leadership approved updated COVID-19 vaccines with restrictions that do the same.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4, following the ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez and tapping of HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill as her interim replacement.
The CDC director—the first to be confirmed by the Senate under new legislation—has been ousted after less than a month following internal unrest regarding new, more restrictive approvals for updated COVID-19 vaccines, according to multiple sources.
Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA commissioner during the first Trump administration, wrote in a JAMA editorial that China is speeding drugs to market and could potentially surpass the U.S. in the innovation game.
The MIT professor of management, who already sits on the CDC’s revamped immunization advisory committee, is a known skeptic of vaccines, particularly mRNA technology.
The White House has denied reports that the government could soon ban COVID-19 vaccines, noting that in the absence of an official announcement, “any discussion about HHS policy should be dismissed as baseless speculation.”
Thousands of employees across the Department of Health and Human Services are set to lose their collective bargaining rights in a move that American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley called “illegal and immoral.”